lO The Present State of Meteorology. 



Art. III. — The Present State of Meteorology. 

 By R. L. J. Ellery, Esq., F.R.S., F.R.A.S. 



[Read 10th May, 1877.] 



The desirability of increasing our knowledge concerning 

 the weather, and more especially with the view of securing 

 some amount of prescience on meteorology, is, I believe, 

 generally admitted; and few will for a moment question 

 the propriety of expending labour, pains, and money, if 

 thereby the more important changes of weather could be 

 predicted with certainty a few days in advance, or if 

 reasonable premonition of climatic vicissitudes — such as 

 rains, droughts, excessive heat, or cold — could be deduced 

 from the discussion of past and present meteorological 

 observations. Assuming this much, then, I purpose to 

 refer briefly to what has been and is being done towards 

 these ends, and with what probability of success and 

 usefulness to the world. 



Although the systematic meteorological observations and 

 investigations of the physical laws dominating the changes 

 and movements of the earth's atmosphere have occupied 

 the attention of physicists and observers in past times, it 

 is only within the last few years, comparatively speaking, 

 that the subject has been grappled with comprehensively 

 and scientifically. The tentative essay at prediction and 

 forecast on scientific principles which has been made in 

 Europe and America are matters almost of to-day, and 

 must be considered as yet only " feeling its way." It is 

 true we have had from time to time, from Murphy down- 

 wards, weather systems propounded, weather predictions a 

 year in advance, and almanacs printed with a prediction 

 allotted to each day ; a lucky coincidence or two enlists the 

 belief of the ignorant for a time, but that great teacher, 

 experience, eventually relegates all these spurious systems 

 to the limbo of fools. The truly scientific meteorologist 

 knows the difiiculty of the matter, and how little has yet 

 been made light which wiU enable him to predict with 

 confidence what weather will prevail in any one locality a 



